Research interests: Chinese politics from the founding of the People's Republic through the cultural revolution, including the Hundred Flowers Campaign, triangle relations between China, the Soviet Union and the United States, and Maoist political thought; Deng Xiaoping's reforms.

Roderick MacFarquhar is the Leroy B. Williams Professor of History and Political Science and formerly Director of the John King Fairbank Center for East Asian Research.

His publications include The Hundred Flowers Campaign and the Chinese Intellectuals; The Sino-Soviet Dispute; China under Mao; Sino-American Relations, 1949-1971; The Secret Speeches of Chairman Mao; the final two volumes of the Cambridge History of China (edited with the late John Fairbank); The Politics of China 2nd Ed: The Eras of Mao and Deng; and a trilogy, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution. His most recent, jointly-authored book on the Cultural Revolution entitled Mao's Last Revolution was published by the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press in 2006.

He was the founding editor of “The China Quarterly," and has been a fellow at Columbia University, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Royal Institute for International Affairs.

In previous personae, he has been a journalist, a TV commentator, and a Member of Parliament.